Kurt Busch not so detestable
During a practice session for Sunday's Daytona 500, there was a clash of spoilers and a screech of tires and a thud of NASCAR Sprint Cup stock cars hitting the wall.
A car driven by Tony Stewart, the reigning series champion with the short fuse, had bumped a car driven by Kurt Busch, the 2004 series champion with an even shorter fuse.
When short fuses collide, dynamite usually is set off.
Not this time.
"I was pushing the 51 car and he had to move a little bit, but I'm still the one pushing him, so I'm responsible for it," said Stewart, the man from Indiana they call "Smoke."
"It was just a deal where Tony was trying to help but I got turned around. So now we'll just bring out the backup (car)," said Busch, the man from Las Vegas they called "Unemployed" until around Christmastime.
Instead of fisticuffs, a Right Guard commercial broke out. Gentlemen, start your speed shtick. Neither driver accused the other of being malodorous, because anything less would have been uncivilized.
If there's one thing Kurt Busch can't afford to be this season, it's uncivilized.
He was uncivil to Dr. Jerry Punch, the ESPN pit reporter, during the heat of battle at last year's season finale in Homestead, Fla., which is why NASCAR probably needs a cooling-off period like the stick-and-ball sports.
Cuss words and a YouTube video led Busch and well-heeled car owner Roger Penske -- and Penske's well-heeled sponsors -- to mutually agree to part company, which is how the news release put it.
This was the second mutual parting of company for the 33-year-old Busch, who also had one of those with well-heeled Jack Roush and his well-heeled sponsors after the 2005 season.
So this mostly explains why Busch, one of Sprint Cup's best drivers with 24 victories and a fine finishing record at Daytona, will mash gas in the 500 for lightly regarded Phoenix Racing, whose pit crew is made up mostly of guys who wear mesh trucker caps.
Busch's proclivity for petulant behavior also mostly explains why he again made Forbes magazine's list of most despised athletes, though he slipped from third to 10th, one spot better than his Sprint Cup points finish the past two years.
"At least I made the top 10 list in something," Busch told reporters. "It is what it is.
"Do you guys believe it?"
I, for one, do not. And perhaps two or three others share my opinion.
During the 2010 NASCAR Victory Lap, I called shotgun and got to ride down the Strip with Busch in the Miller Lite car. And judging from all the people who had gathered to watch, especially the lunatics in front of O'Sheas, where they serve cheap beer in plastic cups, it suddenly dawned that this was a pretty cool thing to be doing.
A lot of guys named LeRoy from the Southern states would have given their left wing nut to be sitting where I was sitting.
It occurred that I should have brought a camera. Because if I'm ever in the Southern states and meet a guy named LeRoy, we'd then have something to talk about, in a best-case scenario, or he'd give me three steps, mister, in a worst-case scenario, like in that Lynyrd Skynyrd song.
And then Busch said he had a nice camera on his iPhone 409, the one with the hemis, and that he probably could get Jeff Gordon or one of the lunatics in front of O'Sheas to take our picture. As it turned out, Chris Maathuis from Channel 8 had brought his iPhone 409 with the hemis.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
Take another one, Busch said, flashing a Victory Lane smile and an upturned thumb.
Click.
Would A.J. Foyt have been so accommodating?
And whereas a lot of people detest Kurt Busch, a lot of people worship A.J. Foyt, even if he was laps ahead of Busch in irascibility and truculence and laptop computers chucked in anger down the pit lane.
As Busch says, it is what it is. It's not good enough being a nice guy 98 percent of the time anymore, because the other 2 percent will get one vilified on Twitter. In Foyt's day, 50-50 was good enough.
But at least Busch still has a ride for Daytona.
His eyes are still on the road; his hands are still upon the wheel. He's still goin' to the roadhouse, hopin' to have a real good time.
Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.
